Dress Blues
by blackberet
Summary: "When Earth calls, you make sure you're there with your dress blues on, ready to take the hit." Shepard deals with the aftermath of the events of Arrival, and with returning to Earth. A partial bridge between Arrival and Mass Effect 3.


**Dress Blues**

_Author's note: This story bridges part of the gap between the end of the Mass Effect 2 Arrival DLC and the beginning of Mass Effect 3. The title is based on Hackett's line to Shepard at the end of Arrival: "Do whatever you have to do out here. But when Earth calls, you make sure you're there with your dress blues on, ready to take the hit."_

* * *

><p>Cerberus had stocked the closet in her quarters with a range of casual uniforms to wear while she was on board—all that profiling and reconstruction had told them her size, but not her tastes. Kasumi had bought her the black leather dress that made her feel more like an asari dancer than a marine, but once or twice, when she was alone late at night and needed to remind herself she was still human, she'd put it on anyway. She had a couple of sets of armor in there too; the N7 in front, polished to a high black sheen around its scuffs, the spare pieces and the other sets farther back. But there was only one thing she'd never put on, not even to try the fit the day she'd picked it up on the Citadel: her dress blues.<p>

A week after the Project, Shepard wasn't sure she was ready to do it now.

A few of her crew had edged up to her in the last several days and quietly—or not so quietly, in Jack's case—suggested that she didn't have to go back. Going pirate wasn't on any version of her agenda, but sometimes it was tempting to imagine the other alternatives for a minute: they could just keep wandering the stars, touching down to right wrongs and spray bullets across the galaxy. They could build a new Shadow Broker empire and drink champagne at every meal for the rest of their lives.

But they couldn't. The Reapers were still out there. Even if they hadn't been, she was under Alliance orders to present herself back on Earth, wrists outstretched for the cuffs. Even if she hadn't been, Shepard would have gone back. Running from her actions wasn't what she did—and experience told her that no matter how fast or how far you traveled, actions like this would outrun you, every time.

* * *

><p>The whole crew knew before she was even conscious, even before Hackett got there, but she called them all together to tell them again anyway. They deserved the chance to jump ship if they didn't want to serve under her anymore. No self-loathing there, Shepard thought; just facts. Everyone on the ground team had a kill count too high to keep track of, but not everyone would want to take orders from someone whose death toll included an entire system. It wouldn't've sat well with her, a few years ago. She didn't have any illusions that it would ever sit well with Kaidan.<p>

Tali had stood up first and said she knew Shepard would never do something like that unless it was the only option. Jacob agreed with her, and once the moral champions of the ship had jumped in, so did the rest of them, down to the deckhands. Some of their expressions told her a few of the former Cerberus crew weren't so sure, but they couldn't say that, not in the face of all that ringing endorsement. Some of their faces suggested that they though the deaths of 300,000 batarians deserved a medal, regardless of your reasons for doing it. Shepard had turned away and gone back to her quarters to nurse her disgust with a bottle of, ironically, batarian ale. It was all she had left in her stash from the Citadel. When she was done, she didn't even have that.

* * *

><p>That was the first night she'd taken out the dress blues and laid them on the bed. Shepard couldn't remember the last time she'd worn a set of these; even her Spectre induction had been done in armor. It would've been years by any count, even if you left out the two she didn't remember.<p>

_I'm an Alliance soldier. Always will be_, Kaidan's voice echoed in the back of her mind. She ran a fingertip over the insignia on the chest, the gleaming metallic surface where the texture of the fabric changed.

Then she put the hanger up again, back in its place in the far rear corner of the closet. Not yet.

* * *

><p>She couldn't think of anything that needed her attention more urgently, but she told Joker to take them back the long way anyway after Hackett left, to give her another week to walk the decks of her own ship and hear people call her "Commander." Petty ego trips, but she'd gotten used to them. She carried her rank like she carried her pistol; like an extension of herself. Losing them—she'd be like Kasumi, if you stripped away her cloaking and threw back her cowl. She'd be lost, as good as naked, and if you put her in front of a mirror she'd have to look at it and see herself: just a human woman. Just Jane.<p>

Commander Shepard wasn't all that sure who Jane was anymore, and she didn't want to have to find out.

* * *

><p>Barricading herself in her quarters to lick her wounds wasn't going to get her anywhere. On the second day, she started talking to the crew individually.<p>

"I know you're a goody two-shoes, Shepard, but—look, forget those military fuckers for a second and be honest. You ever even met a batarian you liked?" And Shepard had to admit, no, she hadn't. "Hah. Thought so," Jack snorted. "They're all goddamn slavers. You want my opinion, I think you did the galaxy a big favor."

Shepard went up to the tech lab in search of someone less insane. When she came in, Mordin actually put his test tubes down to look at her. "Know how you feel. Never _killed_ anyone who didn't deserve it, but genophage modification raises similarly questionable ethical implications. Both painful, but necessary." He sniffed. "Recommend staying busy. Physical, mental activity helpful in promoting sounder sleep patterns."

With that in mind, Shepard jogged to the elevator, and got out on the crew deck to find Miranda still camped out at her desk. After the Collector base, Miranda had markedly less need to report back to the Illusive Man all the time, so Shepard couldn't figure out what she was doing. Maybe nothing. Maybe Shepard wasn't the only one who wouldn't be able to figure out what to do with herself without all her trappings of authority. "Shepard," Miranda said without her asking, "the Illusive Man recruited you because he knew you would do what needed to be done to stop the Reapers. That means making the tough choices. I know that isn't easy, but you did the right thing."

Usually when she did the right thing, it felt more like it, Shepard thought as she headed back to the elevator. You took the time to bring Rupert a few ingredients from the Citadel, everyone ate better; it was the right thing to do and it was obvious. You ran into slavers, you shot them in the head, it felt right. You killed hundreds of thousands of people and possibly started a war, it felt about as wrong as it got.

She wasn't stupid. She knew destroying the system hadn't just been the right choice, it had been the only choice. But as right as it was on paper, the knot in her gut still refused to come undone.

* * *

><p>She hated the dress blues because they looked so damn <em>vulnerable<em>, she decided, tracing the gold-trimmed edges of the collar with her fingertips. The thin fabric, the slim-cut trousers, the square-toed black heels polished to such a shine you could blind someone with them in the right light. That might be its only tactical value, though, she thought. This thing wouldn't take a shot. If a biotic threw you against a wall, there was no shock absorption or exoskeleton to soften the blow. You'd die. Simple as that. All your combat skill wouldn't amount to shit.

* * *

><p>She kept testing her flexibility. On the third day she paid a lot of attention to stretches that could be done in confined spaces; exercises you could perform with your arms or legs manacled to a wall. She was still working on how she was going to stay in shape if they restrained her arms <em>and<em> legs. Ab flexes and Kegels were about it, she guessed.

Actually, Shepard had no idea what the outcome of all this was going to be. Some uncomfortable explanations, certainly. More doubt from another self-righteous group of overdressed people on a platform, with badly-concealed skepticism that would quickly break down into them outright accusing her of being delusional. Then what? A court martial? A dishonorable discharge? Prison? War or no war, they wouldn't hand her over to the batarians, at least; she was still a damn hero. Other than that, she had no idea. There wasn't exactly a lot of precedent for a crime like this.

"Quit making it all about you," she repeated to herself regularly. It would've been nice if someone else reinforced it. It would do her good to hear someone else say, "Worry about the batarians around the galaxy who lost their families. Worry about everyone who's going to suffer if this starts a war, especially if the Reapers come back in the middle of it. All you did was push a damn button." For some reason, no one ever did.

* * *

><p>Joker started complaining before she even made it to the cockpit. "I can't believe you're going back. You don't know what it was like after you died, Commander. Everyone scattered all over the place—and you should have seen some of the buckets they wanted me to fly. I don't even know if those Reaper schematics will be enough to get the brass to listen to us."<p>

"We're still in better shape than we were two years ago, Joker," Shepard replied. You had to squint to see it, but at least this time she wasn't dead. And Hackett's word might count for more than Anderson's if they needed to play the look-this-officer-believes-us game with the Alliance.  
>Still, she didn't know how things would go for Joker and Dr. Chakwas. Hopefully the Alliance would accept her word that she'd acted alone in the Bahak System; all they'd done was pick her up and patch her up. But they'd still defected to known terrorist organization. There probably wasn't much the Alliance could do to them for that, except take away the Normandy. A helmsman with Joker's skills could always find work, but this might be the last time he flew his beloved ship. It wasn't right. All this wasn't his fault.<p>

"You're not going to let them take her, are you?" he asked anxiously, as if he was reading her mind.

"Are you talking about the Normandy or EDI?"

"Both! You wouldn't cheat on me with another pilot, right, EDI?"

EDI's display lit up. "Fidelity is beyond the limits of my programming, Jeff. But I will not proactively inform any future pilots of the seat-warming controls."

"Aww, she really likes me." Joker grinned. But not with his eyes.

* * *

><p>On the fourth day, she found Thane sitting in life support with his chin resting on his folded hands, as if he were praying. He might die while she was on Earth, Shepard realized with a jolt. This might be their last conversation. She sat down across from him and let the conversation work its way around to the spectacular end of Amanda Kenson's Project, the way they all did this week. Thane just spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. "If you need to talk, I am here. But if it is absolution you need, I can't give you that. You must seek it yourself, as we all do." Batarians had killed Thane's wife, Shepard remembered. He'd said his body had hunted him down, made them suffer. The only deaths on his conscience.<p>

She wandered back upstairs. A datapad on Shepard's desk contained _The Complete Works of Alfred Tennyson_, the only thing she hadn't shipped back to Ash's pack of sisters. Ash had said once that she could turn to a poem at random and find that it gave her what she needed at the time. Shepard had never had the same luck. Today she tried it and her eyes fell on, "…that eye which watches guilt / And goodness, and hath power to see / Within the green the moulder'd tree / And towers fall'n as soon as built…"

Ashley Williams had believed in that eye, in a God who watched over her and guided her hand to the right poem, every time. It would have been comforting if Shepard could share that belief. But Ash's faith hadn't saved her life, Shepard thought. Neither had the batarians'. They'd died the same way—trapped while Shepard set off a devastating explosion for the greater good. At least Ash would have had time to pray, in between shooting geth with her back to the bomb.

Shepard put the datapad down and turned away.

* * *

><p>"Poor bastards were all dead anyway," Zaeed said. "At least you made it goddamned fast."<p>

* * *

><p>On the fifth day, she went into the comm room and almost called her mother, then thought better of it. Hannah Shepard, captain of the flagship of the Fifth Fleet, probably had enough flak ahead of her just for being the mother of the rogue soldier who might have tipped the Alliance into a massive interspecies war; she didn't need matters made any worse with comm records between them. They'd just be more fodder for an interrogation.<p>

Shepard wondered if they'd heard her name in conjunction with the Bahak System relay yet or if the brass were still trying to keep it quiet; she'd stayed off the extranet news. She wondered what they'd say. It had been a while since she'd been able to tell them much about her military career—back before her Spectre induction, when there were still parts of what she did that weren't classified. She'd never had much to say that hadn't made her mother proud. A model soldier, Hannah Shepard had said proudly once. The phrase had reminded her daughter more of a kid's toys than of herself.

There was something philosophical there, if philosophy was how she wanted to spend her time. Shepard stayed in the empty room a long while before she finally turned the lights out and left.

* * *

><p>"The Reapers are a threat to the peace and security of the entire galaxy," Samara said on the sixth day. "If that is a wrong you feel you must right, you are under no obligation to remain in their custody."<p>

"You're suggesting that I shoot my way out through my own people to escape punishment for mass murder?" That wasn't Shepard's idea of justice.

"I am suggesting that you do what is needed. You know better than I can the path you must walk." Samara turned her placid gaze on Shepard, not unkindly, and then went back to meditating. Shepard sat with her for a while, trying to get to whatever eternal state of calm Samara never seemed to have any trouble accessing. It didn't work. She took her pistol into an empty corridor and imagined mowing down the enemies who popped out from behind every corner, and got a lot closer.

* * *

><p>The night before they reached Earth, she reminded everyone she saw to pack their things, expecting that the Normandy would be on lockdown as soon as they touched down. Her own belongings had already been collected into three cases: one for armor, one for weapons, and a third, pathetically small, for everything else she owned. It was just an exercise; she didn't have any illusions that her belongings would follow her wherever she was going. Only the dress blues were left out. She dispersed her model ship collection with the calm altruism of someone giving away all her worldly possessions before a suicide: the new Normandy to Joker and the old one to Dr. Chakwas, the Alliance cruiser to Jacob, the Geth ship to Legion, the drop shuttle to one of the crewmen to bring home to his kids. She fed the fish, although she knew she was probably setting them up for a slow death by starvation once the Alliance took the ship. Mercy killing might've been kinder, but for once, Shepard wouldn't mind if the blood were on someone else's hands.<p>

When it was all settled, she called Garrus up to her quarters. It was the first time since before she landed on Aratoht; she hadn't been in the mood much since. He came quickly, in the same civilian clothes he always wore up here. Shepard had seen him in them—and out of them—a number of times, but she still always did a double-take at his not being in armor.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey," she echoed, and led him to the sofa. He sat down and she laid her head briefly against his shoulder, which was comfortingly solid, if not actually comfortable. They'd get down to it, but she needed a minute first.

After a long silence, he spoke. "Want to hear a story?"

Shepard put up a hand to stop him. "If it's about Zaeed shooting a bottle of whiskey off Mess Sergeant Gardner's head the other night, three people have already told me. I think you had to be there for it to be funny."

"No," Garrus said. "This is something else." He shifted, leaning forward on his knees and looking straight ahead, as if he were seeing something in his mind's eye. Shepard leaned forward too and watched him.

"Years ago, when I was with C-Sec, I was tracking a serial killer," he began. "Another turian. Nasty son of a bitch. He'd already targeted three asari and two human women by the time I found him.

"I tailed him halfway around the Citadel and finally managed to corner him in a warehouse in the Wards. I had a sniper rifle and good cover, so I thought it would be easy to convince him to turn himself in—or to take him out. But right as I was yelling for him to give himself up, a human female came out of one of the back rooms, and he took his chance. He grabbed her and used her as a shield. The bastard was good; he started moving, covering himself with her so well I couldn't get a clear shot. But I couldn't let him get away, either."

"What did you do?"

"I took the shot anyway. Had it lined up perfectly so I could get both of them through the shoulder. She'd be fine with some medical treatment, and he'd be disabled long enough for me to restrain him. But at the last second, he moved. I caught them both right through the chest. They were both dead by the time I got over there."

Shepard didn't say anything.

"Some cop. I thought I was doing this to protect people, but there I was killing them."

So it was going where she'd thought. "So what happened?" she asked.

"My father was furious, but not half as furious as Pallin. I was angrier than either of them. I beat myself up over it for a long time." That sounded like him, Shepard thought as he paused, remembering the way he'd brooded over Sidonis. Then Garrus continued, "And then I stopped. What happened was awful, but sometimes collateral damage has to happen in war. She would've been just as dead if I hadn't pulled the trigger, and that killer wouldn't have made it as quick as I did. Stopping him had to come first."

"You didn't destroy an entire system, Garrus," Shepard said. She had been going to leave it at that, but something pushed her to keep going. "Everyone keeps giving me advice, and telling me their little stories, and none of it even comes close to what I did. What I've done."

He was quiet for another long minute. Then he gave a tired sigh. "Hell, Shepard, nobody's done the things you've done. Little stories are all I've got."  
>She hadn't meant it that way—well, she <em>had<em>, in her anger, but not really. She thought again about the Shadow Broker's dossier on him. _Leadership potential overshadowed by Shepard. Unlikely to fully develop under Shepard's command_. He could have bigger stories while she was out of commission. Be a hero instead of her sidekick. Maybe it was good that this was happening now, after all, before things got too serious.

"At least you stopped the killer for good," she offered. "All I did was buy us a little time."

"It's more time than we had." He stood, held out his hand to her. "Might as well use it, right?"

She took his hand and let him pull her up and over to the bed, and they fell into each other with more ease than two people with such alien bodies had any right to expect. Afterwards, they stayed closer than usual. Garrus eventually dozed, but Shepard lay awake, watching the fish circle in the blue light of the tank and counting the hours until arrival.

* * *

><p>She showered early and found Garrus awake and already half-dressed when she got back, pocketing the adrenaline shots from her nightstand drawer. He might as well; she wasn't going to need them where she was going. Better not to have to answer the awkward questions the Alliance might ask if they found them, too.<p>

Shepard couldn't put it off any longer.

She dressed fast—you got into the habit in the marines, when you had to get ready to fight on a moment's notice. Underclothes first. Then she slipped into the shirt, leaving the hanger on the bed; they probably had more on Earth. Pants on (even Shepard did it one leg at a time), shirt tucked in, zipped and buttoned. Her feet slid into the shoes—professional, constricting, not even a steel toe. Nothing like her armor boots. Shepard looked around for the jacket but couldn't find it. "Have you seen—" she started to ask, but when she turned back, Garrus was wearing it. It was bunched up behind his neck, with the sleeve cuffs hitting about halfway up his arms. It looked ridiculous.

"Why don't you keep it? It looks better on you than me," Shepard suggested, voice deliberately steady.

"The color does set off my tattoos nicely, but I don't think it's my size."

She laughed for the first time all week as he shrugged it off, careful not to let the flimsy fabric snag on his talons. He laid it over her shoulders and pressed down.

Shepard closed her eyes—just for a few seconds, long enough for the warmth of his skin to soak down to hers. Then she worked her arms into the sleeves, closed the jacket, and turned to face him. "I don't know when I'll see you again."

"I know." There was a long pause, and then Garrus coughed. "We'll try to save you a few Reapers. Can't make any promises, though."

"If you get the shot, take it."

He nodded. His forehead bent down to graze against hers. "Take care, Shepard."

She was struck again by a feeling that had come back to her when she was talking to each of the other members of her team: _this isn't enough_. By rights she should have words for all of them, some way to convey how proud she was to have served with them, how much they meant to her. A rousing speech right before the battle came easily, even knowing what to say to comfort someone, but this—Shepard wasn't good at this. They didn't talk about what all this had been; it just wasn't the way either of them operated. So she just pressed her forehead closer and said, "You too," and hoped it would be enough if this was it.

* * *

><p>The Normandy touched down, smooth as silk. When she got out of the elevator, they were all there. Her crew had crowded the CIC, squeezing in so tightly they barely had room to salute and she barely had room to move. She made her way slowly around the galaxy map, past her terminal (unwiped; let them see she didn't have anything to hide), and down the bridge to the airlock. Joker was waiting next to it. When he saluted, that was the hardest thing yet.<p>

Shepard took one last look back, then turned her gaze forward and stepped inside. The airlock doors behind her slid closed. For a moment she was alone in the dimness as the interior pressure was equalized with the exterior atmosphere. She shut her eyes and took a deep breath. Then the exterior doors opened, and the next time she inhaled, it was her first breath of Earth air in a long time. A ring of blue uniforms stood outside—Anderson was there, and Hackett, and others she didn't know. They were all waiting for her.

Shepard stepped out of the Normandy, dress blues vibrant in the sun, and came forward to meet them.


End file.
